


The Mind F^ck

by ryahlii



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Alex Karev is not okay, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blackmail, Childhood Trauma, Damaged, Depression, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Father-Son Relationship, Foster Care, How Do I Tag, I Don't Even Know, I Watched Too Much Grey's Anatomy, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Injury, Izzie Stevens is hella determined, Meredith Grey & Alex Karev Friendship, Past Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to Depression, Sad Alex Karev, Starving, alex karev's father, cristina yang actually cares
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 12:41:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21969499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryahlii/pseuds/ryahlii
Summary: Something's wrong with Alex Karev and Izzie is going to find out. From nervous agitation to a full on panic attack, she's led through a horrible journey into his past as she carefully unravels the mystery of his childhood, why he can never seem to talk about, why he keeps it locked away.
Relationships: Alex Karev/Isobel "Izzie" Stevens
Comments: 7
Kudos: 26





	1. Bad Weird

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, y’all. carina here. yup it’s meee, the stupid author of this little fic that i hope to continue but like you know, procrastination’s a b*tch. or is it karma? gimme a break, its like 3am and I’m tired as hell. anyhoooo this is my first fanfic, enjoy you lucky bastards *jk i absolutely love u thank you for even clicking on this piece*
> 
> \--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
> Disclaimer: I don't own any part of Grey's Anatomy. These characters are in no way, shape, or form mine.

**“nobody knows where we might end up. nobody knows.”**

Izzie POV

I felt weird. Like bad weird. The type of weird that gnaws your stomach to pieces, settled in the back row of your skull hoping for the moment it can stand up to yell. Bad weird. Picking apart the crummy remnants of a hospital sandwich, I chew it with my hands and my brain screams reprieve, my eyes scream haunted. Breathing. Breathing breathing breathing. Breathingbreathingbreathing. Maybe it’s Denny, maybe it’s grief, maybe it's the gloppy green jello I ate, that festers in my gut alongside my feelings, waiting till it can wrap around my lungs and steal my breath away.  


I’m fine. Because fine people stand outside in front of their workplaces for hours and hours that can’t be counted, for times that can’t be spent. Greedy hands reach for more from the small ticking clock that winds away the days, the days, the days since he died. Because fine people stand alone on that one patch of the sidewalk, stand as their hearts yearn to bolt but their legs are grounded, stuck in the middle for to flee would be unbearable but the contrary just so. Ok. So maybe I’m not. Fine.

  
Meredith may be looking at me, like maybe she’s concerned, or maybe she’s just gauging how long I can last before I break. Again. I sigh and shove the food in my mouth, chewing hard. Offer her a quick smile, a small confirmation that I’m okay, or maybe I could be. Her eyes flick to Cristina but she’s lost in charts and muttering as swift fingers sift through the paperwork. Alex isn’t even here today. Meredith clears her throat expectantly.  


“How are you doing, Izzie?”, her eyes are staring into my face, worried sweaty palms pressing into the side of her chair, on edge, anxious. Maybe she feels it too. “You know… It’s okay if you want to take it easy today. Talk about it?”  


Hastily, I brush aside a stray hair with a fluttering nervous hand and laugh breezily. “How easy could I take it? I’m already on probation. C’mon, Mer! I’m okay, really.”  
She’s doubtful, I can tell but maybe today, this subject can take an uneasy rest. I try to calm the jittery feeling, let my gaze drift towards the avid residents, relaxed chattering blending in a comforting hum. I focus on the normal, the ordinary. Allow myself to linger on the way that nurses bustle in and out through doors, checking patients, clicking pens along to their unceasing tide of paperwork. But somethings off today and the bad weird is rising in my throat like vomit and world seems to tilt its viewpoint, sliding my vision like a shipdeck crashing against a wave and something’s going to happen and _something’s going to happen_

And then Alex Karev slams into me.

God. He’s a shaking mess, breathes coming fast and uneven, hurling themselves out of his mouth and pushing through his lungs, his eyes can’t find a face and hes panicked and he’s scared, he’s scared, oh god he’s so scared. _What’s happening right now._ I think I’m shouting his name, I think I’m grabbing his face, Alex Alex look at me oh please look at me, please calm down, please please please. He’s flushed red yet unhealthily pale and he’s hot and cold and he’s breathing so fast all at the same time, and his fumbling hands are scrambling to grab a chair but missing. I’m looking into his wide petrified eyes but he’s not there, there’s nothing but terror and fear, terror and fear.  
Meredith and Cristina must have gotten up because they’re here, they’re around us, grabbing Alex’s shoulders because his knees have started to buckle and he’s started to slump forward into our arms, his forehead of beaded sweat smacking against our huddled bodies, straining to lift him up. Maybe I’m crying or maybe my eyes are burning dry because I can’t look away and my mouth is gaping in horror, what’s happening, why is this happening, why right now, why today, why why _why_  


We ease him down on the hard tile floor, and we’re asking him what he wants, what he needs and he’s looking at us but he’s not, he’s slack and uncomprehending until he’s not. Until something finally clicks in him for his mind seems to clear and tears shine a mirror on his stare as realization set in, where he was, who was watching. Blood rushes up in his face with cruel taunting humiliation. Alex is looking up at us so hopelessly, his face a little grim line of desperation because how can he come back from this. His trembling fingers catch my wrist and I’m crouching down, my arm extends to gently graze his turned shoulder. His voice breaks.

  


“Iz—”, He’s the perfect picture of pain. “get me out of here.”





	2. Blue Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey i'm backkkkkkk. With a flashbackkkkkkk.

Alex POV:

_"Get me out of here."_

Get me out of here.

_My mother said that once. That day. That day that smelled like rain and that day the windows were clogged with crowded droplets. I watched them race to the bottom of the sill, race till they crept under its creaky pane to greet me with their timid hellos. I watched them with my siblings, huddled under the wailing rafters, as they clung to me like prickly burrs, the kind that always left their scratchy strands to crawl under my skin, to rope around my limbs; heavy chains, binding me to their cries. My mother watched them too. She perched by the window, a delicate feathered creature, empty eyes staring glassily at the beat spots of water, so lucky to have caught the neon lights of a flickering bar, glasses clinking and warbling voices echoing in the hollow well of spirits._

_She stared and stared, hours passing before suddenly rousing with a sudden vigor, as though an old friend had called out to her, an enemy had whispered in her ear. But too soon, too soon again would her bouts of activity be struck through, blown out like a feeble flame called to rest into coal behind those glass eyes. Too soon would she forget why she had stood up, too soon would she collapse inwards on herself in that creaky wooden chair, it was too too soon for the small boy running on skinny legs to see if his mother had finally returned. Me._

_That day was a blue day._

_I would wonder, a miserable wretch I was, how how on earth could she look at the window so, what could those slick trails of tears possibly offer over her boy, her son. I was right there. Wake up wake up wake up. Wake up and see me. Wake up and know that I'm not one of those urges, that I'm not one of the cries that echo through your head. But her scant splintering chair would never creak, never betray movement as her still hands lay clasped in a placid lap._

_My round cheeks would beam up at her sometimes, up at that pallid tired face and talk. Talk about nothing, and about everything. I'd babble on about school, what I learned today, just what I thought of that new brat in class. I closed my eyes and painted a scene where she would answer, where she would hold me so tight I couldn't breathe and press warm kisses on my forehead, lips murmuring love quietly in my ear. I wished and I wished and I hoped and hoped, rocking back and forth with my eyes squeezed shut until the world became so blindingly beautiful behind my eyelids, till I could hardly stand but to open them wide and receive the wonder that was surely there. Always, the perfect picture would be ripped to shreds, torn to pieces, shattered with shards in my heart beating beating beating. Alone. And I would look up and see only the broken eggshells of a person, trod on with careless feet, alongside the rancid dust clinging to frigid air._

_I knew my mother could never repeat my secrets that I poured over her all those days, all those years and she would never care to know. Eventually I learned to stop wishing that she even did. But sometimes, she'd turn her head, just a fraction of an inch, to briefly take me in for what was this incessant buzzing in her ear. If I was lucky, she'd sigh in a sort of feeble acknowledgement but more often than not, she'd merely turn shivering, back to the drizzling rain. Back to the cold.Looking back, I should have realized._

_She was watching the sidewalk._

_Waiting._

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Izzie is staring at me with sad eyes. Scared eyes. I didn't mean to scare her, I didn't want to scare her but right now blood is burning flames in my face, nausea is making a slippery path through my body, and my stomach feels although it could swoop through the floor. If I look into those sad scared eyes again I might throw up. God, I feel as fragile as glass, a pane that's already been cracked just waiting for the tremor that sends it flying into a million pieces.

My fumbling fingers grab the chair again, feeling cold sweat beading on the nape of my neck, feeling the eyes of the hospital boring into my skull, tiny drills screwing through my barriers and loosening my crumbling walls. Tears might be pricking in my eyes, and a pressure is building on my head, blurring my vision, and I just, and I just— Heaving myself onto shaky legs, I almost topple right back on the ground but hands are grabbing me, pulling me up and I just want to fall through the ground and die, and I just want to rip up the floor and sew it to my skin, shatter through the walls and hide in the chalky fissures, hide hide _hide_ and yet my limbs are marble and stone, marble and stone. _What in hell is wrong with me?_

The ground is leaning on a woozy tilt, and dizziness is buzzing in my head. I focus on my shallow breaths, in and out, forcing the bilious lump making its way up into my mouth back down in my queasy stomach.

He's back. Inhale, exhale. Back to torment me. Inhale, exhale. He's back. He's back. He's going to hurt us.

ican't-ican't-ican't-ican't-ican't-ican't-

Breathe.

My breath catches fire in my throat.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
_When the laughing, the shouting, the contentious hum of that old murky bar died down, my father would trudge down the sidewalk in metal rimmed boots, across the street to us, for us. I'll always be able to distinguish that familiar clink against pavement, the harsh grind of his shoes, worn through last year but still scraping its way through a reluctant use. I can still be able to recognize the vital difference of the sober man's tread, and the much more present drunk. In the pitter-patter of rain, that odd cacophony of sound was joined by a slosh of water, as he splashed his way home._ Splash, click, shhhh, splash, click, sh—, splash, splash, shhhh, click. _Uneven footsteps. Drunk footsteps._

_Please._

_No._

_Because today was a good day. Because today was a_ good _day. Because today, the children at school have stopped their forbidden whispers, their stifled giggles behind a covert hand as they peek at me behind an old fluttering poster. Because today, they stopped. Today, today, my mother looked at me for the first time in a week. Because today I am drowning in 'could be's and 'what if's, today it's taunting me with its cruel sweet smell that'll be snatched away, to crumble through my hands._ Because today.

_Because today I don't feel like dragging my siblings with their tearful eyes into the old cabinet, blocking the creaking old door with my backpack, a chair, old beer boxes and heavy bags of white powder. I don't feel like scampering like an animal to hide under my squealing bed, gripping its dirty leg as if could root me in place, keep me from flying away to a place much better than here. I don't feel like pleading with my mother to lock the door, to lock him out as she stares at me with an uncomprehending lank expression, yet knowing what comes next._

_Bite my nails till it draws blood, shut my eyes so they never open again, look away look away look away. The crash of bottles, the rage, the drunken stupor, it's not there, it's not there. I don't hear the thud as my mother is tossed to the floor, a rag doll, limp and complacent. I don't hear the yelling, the angry words and furious blows. Because my father is a good man. My father is a_ good _man. My father is a good man. A good man._

_So for now, I lie there and strangle the screams that yearn to flee my mouth like a frightened child that takes off in a harried flight. Lie there until the rosy cheeks of dawn break through the soggy panes, and I'll have to free my brother and my sister from their prison of safety, when I'll have to pick across a glass strewn floor to wipe my mother with a sodden rag and guide her to the chair._

_That day. That day in a forever of nothing, she lifted her head of tangled curls and bruises and pleaded with clear eyes._

_"Get me out of here."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be an Izzie POV :)
> 
> \- carina nebbie x


	3. three (weeks, words)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A heads up,a few weeks have passed

Izzie POV

Alex is standing barefoot in the doorway of the kitchen.

His head’s a rough halo of rumpled hair, the type of hair that frantic hands have pulled through and through, the type that’s been twisted by a frenzied onslaught of nervous fingers that run with their desperate motions to grab on to something, anything. Right now, they clench a fistful of soft grey fabric, yanking on baggy worn sweatpants that hides his cool buzzing phone in the thick folds of its pocket. He shifts on uneasy feet, and looks to a point somewhere off to the side of my face like he’s pretending three weeks ago didn’t happen.

_Like three weeks ago didn’t happen._

Like three weeks ago he didn’t fly incoherent with terror into the midst of his lunching peers, like he didn’t fall to the floor, a marionette chopped from cruel hands, lolling limp in Cristina’s hasty arms. Like she didn’t gape at me bewildered and mouthing _what do i do, what should i do_ as Meredith trailed helplessly behind, all wide eyes and skittish limbs, a small bug found caught in a net. Like I didn’t just stand there, stand there as fate delivered its stinging slaps in my face and horror stole my lungs straight from my chest. But it happened. Three weeks ago, we hauled him into my faded blue car, hobbling along in a jumbled mess of bodies as the swarming murmurs and worried whispers of the hospital enveloped around us, cocooning us in one burning parcel of stifling desperation. Three weeks ago, I guided him gently, to the shower while his eyes shone wide and his mouth lay frozen in a surprised little “oh” that didn’t stir, not even as the drip drip drip of water made its steaming trails down his back. I left him there, huddled in the hot spray, staring at the wide white tiles littering the bathroom floor, while the thick steam that rose in crisp air hid him from the prying world.

Alex didn’t talk much after that. He became a ghost in our house, a ghost that would pace to an unceasing frantic gait, and a ghost that would startle and shake the floor boards as the shy ping of his texts goes off. For three long weeks, he picked at the food I brought with my hesitant steps, edging in through a squeaking door frame, leaving it going cold, to sit by his bedside as he stared stared stared at the impatient notifications on a glowing screen. We couldn’t even catch glimpses of him, concealed behind closed doors and when Derek came to the house, worried eyebrows knit together in a little thread of concern asking _how’s Karev doing? Is he okay?_ , we couldn’t even begin to tell him.

But now, he’s standing barefoot in the doorway of the kitchen. He’s standing there, standing there and looking as if he’d rather be anywhere else. The grease stained spatula I had been holding lay aloft, forgotten and my lips part with something that might be relief.  
I’m gazing at the sloping outline of his jaw and attempting to lock onto those dark averted eyes, drinking in that tortured face for what if he disappears again. I try to speak over the loud sizzle of bacon in a pan, I try to crack a bright smile at him, preparing caring words to coax him out of his defensive shell like one would try not to frighten a flighty animal with toes already poised to flee. _Bacon is good,_ I’m thinking desperately. _He likes bacon_. “Alex—”  
“I’m moving out.”

And three words silence my hope forever. 

“What?!”, I shake my head, confused.“What do you mean you’re _moving out?_ ”

“I—I just—I’m leaving okay?”, Alex is wincing at my reaction, obviously this is everything he had expected. He dreaded this, I realized. He’s dreaded talking to me. “Iz can you just—?”

“No! No, Alex! I don’t know what the hell is going on with you right now, but I’m sure as hell going to find out!”, my voice rings out with a bitter snap and I’m not sure that it’s my own. “And you are not, I repeat are not leaving this house.”

“You can’t stop me.”

“ _I can_."

He’s begun to twist the hem of his shirt in knots and those eyes, _those eyes_ are pleading sad puppies that are trying to snarl but just can’t seem to figure out how. “You don’t understand. God, you don’t understand." 

__

“Then tell me, goddammit!”

“ _I can’t be here anymore._ ” He spits the words out panting, with their sour taste on his tongue. Something seems to have shattered in him and I’m just supposed to pick up the pieces, to shred my hands on its pointed edges. And I can’t, I just can’t.

“Why?! Are you seriously this stupid that you can’t realize that I’m trying to help you? Just because some idiot keeps texting you? And what! Texting you what! Alex, just because you act like an idiot doesn’t mean you actually have to be one!”,I’m breathing hard and he’s looking at me, surprise written all over his face. Sudden pain seems to set in like salt in a wound while he blinks away the traitor tears that may have sprung in his eyes. He just looks so hurt, so betrayed and I’m pressing two scared fingers to my lips willing them to be kind, to not hurl their furious letters like the small helpless child that I so feel like. The bacon is burning now.

He swallows the glass that’s surely broken in his chest and I hate myself. I hate this, I hate this. 

Looking down, I breathe in a long sigh as I try to find the stupid little person I was when I woke up today, when I was still patient hopeful Izzie who thought that maybe, just maybe things take the easy shift back to normal, and that the messy tangle that we’ve somehow gotten ourselves into will unravel. The person that believed everything would be okay. Everything would be okay. But now it’s not and I want to scream at the beckoning sky and throw my insults across the room to everybody and nobody, _rip_ though this marble counter till there’s nothing but shreds, the shreds of my dignity settling around me, paper-thin, meaningless. 

I’m disgusted with myself for I’m mad at him. I’m mad at him for tearing through whatever thin binding there was that held our perfect little makeshift family together. I’m mad, I’m mad when it’s him who’s suffering, when it’s him who’s in pain, and it’s selfish and it’s unjust and it’s all wrong wrong wrong. What happened to empathy? What happened to those naive little promises I made to myself in the high of night? That I would be good, that I would be understanding? No, no, I don’t want to be like an angry me, a spiteful me that has forfeited everything that I am to this bleak little window, onlooking the passing people, being the only one too absinthal to be able to step outside. Because that’s not fair. Instead, I’m going to soften my voice, I’m going to apologize, grab the cruel words back to lock somewhere safe, somewhere so far away that he can’t feel their smarting bruises left on his skin. Somewhere they can’t damage him any more than they have already. I want to—I need to look at him lovingly like the wonderful person I should be, the saintly figure that I’ve seemed to convince everyone but myself I am.  
But when I look up, Alex is gone. And I am left lonely, watching the front door swing on its squealing hinges as he runs out barefoot in a dew strewn street.

Maybe I should chase after him.

Maybe I should run away, too.


End file.
